Beneath the dismal shadow of these autumnal elections the Thirty-seventh Congress came together for its final session, December 1, 1862. The political situation was peculiar and unfortunate. There was the greatest possible need for sympathetic coöperation in the Republican party; but sympathy was absent, and coöperation was imperfect and reluctant. The majority of the Republican members of Congress obstinately maintained their alienation from the Republican President; an enormous popular defection from Republicanism had taken place in its natural strongholds; and Republican domination had only been saved by the aid of States in which Republican majorities had been attainable actually because a large proportion of the population was so disaffected as either to have enlisted in the Confederate service, or to have refrained from voting at elections held under Union auspices. Therefore, whether Mr. Lincoln looked forth upon the political or the military situation, he beheld only gloomy prospects. But having made fast to what he believed to be right, he would not, in panic, cast loose from it. In the face of condemnation he was not seen to modify his course in order to conciliate any portion of the people; but, on the contrary, in his message he returned to his plan which had hitherto been so coldly received, and again strenuously recommended appropriations for gradual, compensated emancipation and colonization. The scheme had three especial attractions for him: 1. It would be operative in those loyal States and parts of States in which military emancipation would not take effect. 2. In its practical result it would do away with slavery by the year 1900, whereas military emancipation would now free a great number of individuals, but would leave slavery, as an institution, untouched and liable to be revived and reinvigorated later on. 3. It would make emancipation come as a voluntary process, leaving a minimum of resentment remaining in the minds of slaveholders, instead of being a violent war measure never to be remembered without rebellious anger. This last point was what chiefly moved him. He intensely desired to have emancipation effected in such a way that good feeling between the two sections might be a not distant condition; the humanity of his temperament, his passion for reasonable dealing, his appreciation of the mischief of sectional enmity in a republic, all conspired to establish him unchangeably in favor of "compensated emancipation." For the accomplishment of his purpose he now suggested three articles of amendment to the Constitution. He spoke earnestly; for "in times like the present," he said, "men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity." Beneath the solemnity of this obligation he made for his plan a very elaborate argument. Among the closing sentences were the following:--